food additives..What's in My Food?

[Guest guest]

What's in My Food?

 

By Pallavi Gogoi

 

(http://aol.businessweek.com/)

 

 

Few people know that the food coloring listed as cochineal extract

comes

from female beetles. Food activists want to spread the word.

 

When you dig into a strawberry Yoplait yogurt, take a moment to

contemplate

where the beautiful pink color comes from. Strawberries? Think again.

It

comes from crushed bugs. Specifically, from the female cochineal

beetles and

their eggs. And it's not just yogurt. The bugs are also used to give

red

coloring

to Hershey Good & Plenty candies, Tropicana grapefruit juice, and

other

common foods.

 

 

 

You won't find " crushed bugs " on the list of ingredients for any of

these

foods, however. Companies have a bit of latitude in describing

exactly what

they put in our food. Many larger companies, such as General Mills,

the

manufacturer of Yoplait and Pepsi, the maker of Tropicana, identify

the dye in

their

products as either carmine, or cochineal extract. Still, many

companies

simply list " artificial color " on their ingredients list without

giving any

details

 

Food activists are trying to change disclosure requirements. The Food

& Drug

Administration has received numerous complaints over the issue and is

now in

the process of considering a proposal to require color additives like

the

cochineal extract to be disclosed on the labels of all foods that use

them.

" Hopefully we'll see something by the end of the year, " says Michael

Jacobson,

executive director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest,

a food

advocacy group in Washington, D. C.

 

ALLERGIC REACTIONS. Jacobson says that consumers want to know what

they're

eating. Some are allergic to bug extract; others are

vegetarians. " The food

product should indicate that it comes from insects so that

vegetarians at least

can avoid the product, " he says.

 

 

 

 

 

Food Poll

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carmine may be the least of food activists' worries. It is known to

cause

allergic reactions in just a small percentage of the population. Food

producers

sometimes add much more dangerous chemical additives to make their

products

look attractive (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/27/06, _ " Hershey: A Sweeter

Bid " _

(http://aol.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_13/b3977106.htm) ).

 

Indeed, who would think that chicken, eggs, and salmon are often

artificially enhanced to look more appetizing to consumers? The

plump, juicy

chicken

sitting on the supermarket shelf is likely to have been fed

canthaxanthin, a

pigment added to chicken feed to enhance poultry's yellow color and

make it

look

palatable. And egg-laying hens are also given a dye along with their

feed,

making egg yolks vary in color from light yellow all the way to

bright orange.

 

IN THE PINK. Farmers can have their pick from a color chart that goes

from

the numbers 1 to 15, coinciding with colors from yellow to red. The

yellow

color comes from xanthophyll and carotenoids in the feed absorbed

through the

intestine, metabolized, and deposited in the egg yolk. In an article

published

last year, R. Scott Beyer, a poultry specialist from the Kansas State

University, recommended different levels of xanthophylls, depending

on what

color of

yolk is desired. He says 23 mg of xanthophyll per pound of feed

results in a

" medium orange " color.

 

 

The fresh, farm-raised salmon that shoppers buy also get their orange-

red

hue from eating the chemicals astaxanthin and canthaxanthin. Wild

salmon are

pink because they eat shrimp-like creatures called krill. But to

achieve the

same pink color, farmed salmon need chemicals, which are mixed with

their feed.

In the past couple of years, the European Union significantly reduced

the

level of such dyes that can be fed to salmon because of concerns that

the dyes,

at high levels, can affect people's eyesight.

 

Two years ago, in the U.S., Seattle law firm Smith & Lowney filed two

class

actions against grocers Kroger and Safeway in Washington and

California,

contending that they should disclose that their salmon are dyed pink.

Both

lawsuits got thrown out of court. However, Knoll Lowney, a partner at

the law

firm,

says that the lawsuits raised enough public awareness that many

grocers

voluntarily use " color added " labels to their salmon.

 

Still, Lowney says that such dyes are totally unnecessary. " This is a

growing problem because the food companies are using more artificial

means to

enhance the appearance of the product and make it appear like

something that it

is

not, " he says. A walk down the grocery aisle for processed food is an

eye

opener†" the bacon and ham get their red tint from sodium ascorbate,

an

antioxidant and color stabilizer, and the Betty Crocker icing gets

its bright

white

color not from natural cream and egg whites but from titanium

dioxide, a

mineral that is also used in house paints. Betty Crocker manufacturer

General

Mills

didn't return phone calls seeking comment.

 

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